Being a mere woman, I'm not allowed to use the chain saw, brushcutter, and various other mechanised implements we have. I'm dangerous with a wheelbarrow. The wood next door is permanently threatening to encroach. I find a good pair of loppers invaluable, along with leather gauntlets. I would cut as much as possible with loppers, rake it off and burn. I have a neverbend root breaker, that is good for root extraction on brambles. To get rid of perennial weeds I would then spray everything that regrows with glyphosate. . Then fork over the land, keeping anything you havn't got time for under black plastic or layers of cardboard, or even old carpets.

No quick solutions, but it will give you a blank canvas to start from.

I think we have to assume a certain degree of common sense, competence and the ability of a poster to fully acquaint themselves with a site and employ professional help if they decide the job is beyond them after they've researched the necessary techniques. After all, a careless prod with a crowbar could hit an unexploded bomb.

Buddyboy thanks for your concerns I fully appreciate them. The brambles and bushes are as you guessed almost head height. I had taken advice from my brush utter supplier at the weekend and I can assure you that I lost a pound on two in perspiration today wearing all if the safety kit he sold me. We are doing "surveys" of narrow strips of the land figuring out what's in each strip before we attack it with the brush cutter on a couple of occasions we have had to remove an old gate and a fence post before we went in.

As I stated earlier the advice given has been marvellous and I thank you for your concerns. I do hope other members have found this useful as well .

i would urge any one else using this advice to make sure that they use the correct footwear,eye protection and gloves before taking on a task like this.

one small tip from me " the old brambles are horrendous all the gloves I tried were rubbish then I found a pair of welder gloves in a friend shed, thick leather/suede that come halfway up your forearm,used them on tuesday and wend out and bought a pair this morning best £19 I've spent so far on this project

What I've done in the past is cut everything down to the ground - don't bother raking up - cover everything with a double layer of corrugated cardboard and then bury in at least 4 inches of organic matter - compost, manure, grass cuttings - anything to hold the cardboard down (the more the better, I once buried a plot under 14 inches of half rotted manure, the planting in the spring was brilliant!) then in the spring you can deal with the few pernicious weeds that force their way thru!